I have a scenario I need some advice on how to proceed. I have 5 servers that I want to consolidate into a VM Ware solution with ESX Standard. The client has a server that is currently in use that is VM capable. It is 64-bit, 8 GB of RAM Dual Quad Core Xeon's with a 500GB RAID 5. I want to turn this server into my VM server and then move all my other servers into VM's on this server. What is the best method about doing this? I am going to upgrade my RAM to 16 GB and all servers are w2k3 servers. I'll have an Exchange server, LOB server, BES server, Term SErver and AD/FS server. Any guideance would be greatly appreciated.
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VM Ware
- Thread starter mofusjtf
- Start date
First of all be sure to fully inform your client how dangerous it will be to put all of these virtual machines on a single ESX host. Before if you lost a server, you lost only one. if you lose this server you lose them all.
With that said I would do the following:
- Create a new Exchange VM on the server and then join it to your existing organization. Move all of your mailboxes from your existing Exchange server to your new one. Don't turn your old one off until everyone has had a chance to open Outlook and have their home server redirect to the new one
- LOB server may be a candidate for PtoV conversion but I cannot be sure. The good thing about PtoV is that it doesn't mess up the source server so if the PtoV process fails or the process completes but the new VM is flaky, you can destroy the VM and try again
- You may be able to get away with doing PtoV conversion on the BES server. I've personally never tried it so it may or may not like it much
- Your term server is a good candidate for PtoV conversion
- The AD/FS server will be touchy. I would create a new virtual DC and add it as a peer in your existing domain. Install DNS/DHCP, etc., make it a GC, and transfer all FSMO roles. If you do end up creating a new DC be sure to update the necessary settings in Exchange to point to it. If possible, depending on how you are licensing your Windows installations, I would create a separate File/Print server and use the printer migration tool and the file server migration tool to transfer all of the existing file and printer shares over.
This whole process will take quite a bit of time. In my experience, creating a ghost image of the physical machine and then restoring the image through the PtoV converter is much faster than simply performing a PtoV conversion by itself.
I hate all Uppercase... I don't want my groups to seem angry at me all the time! =)
- ColdFlame (vbscript forum)
With that said I would do the following:
- Create a new Exchange VM on the server and then join it to your existing organization. Move all of your mailboxes from your existing Exchange server to your new one. Don't turn your old one off until everyone has had a chance to open Outlook and have their home server redirect to the new one
- LOB server may be a candidate for PtoV conversion but I cannot be sure. The good thing about PtoV is that it doesn't mess up the source server so if the PtoV process fails or the process completes but the new VM is flaky, you can destroy the VM and try again
- You may be able to get away with doing PtoV conversion on the BES server. I've personally never tried it so it may or may not like it much
- Your term server is a good candidate for PtoV conversion
- The AD/FS server will be touchy. I would create a new virtual DC and add it as a peer in your existing domain. Install DNS/DHCP, etc., make it a GC, and transfer all FSMO roles. If you do end up creating a new DC be sure to update the necessary settings in Exchange to point to it. If possible, depending on how you are licensing your Windows installations, I would create a separate File/Print server and use the printer migration tool and the file server migration tool to transfer all of the existing file and printer shares over.
This whole process will take quite a bit of time. In my experience, creating a ghost image of the physical machine and then restoring the image through the PtoV converter is much faster than simply performing a PtoV conversion by itself.
I hate all Uppercase... I don't want my groups to seem angry at me all the time! =)
- ColdFlame (vbscript forum)
- Thread starter
- #3
Isn't the idea of VM to consolidate? Outside of a board failure, I can have a fault tolerant RAID with hot spare plus redundant power supplies creating a high level of reduncany in the single server. Add a 4 hour response on warranty and downtime from a failure would be minimal.
So you would recommend two servers and split the VM's across them but make sure they are both strong enought to run all 5 VM's at once in the event one is down due to hardware failure? Sounds good.
Do you think I should go with VM or another product such as Virtual Iron or MS Virtual Server?
How do you think it best to backup the server/VM Images?
Sorry for all the questions. Cliet has 4 of 5 servers on out of warrnaty hardware that is 6 plus years old. Downtime is not acceptable so I was looking at a VM solution to help minimize downtime due to hardware failure. I like your suggestion of 2 VM servers. Thanks.
So you would recommend two servers and split the VM's across them but make sure they are both strong enought to run all 5 VM's at once in the event one is down due to hardware failure? Sounds good.
Do you think I should go with VM or another product such as Virtual Iron or MS Virtual Server?
How do you think it best to backup the server/VM Images?
Sorry for all the questions. Cliet has 4 of 5 servers on out of warrnaty hardware that is 6 plus years old. Downtime is not acceptable so I was looking at a VM solution to help minimize downtime due to hardware failure. I like your suggestion of 2 VM servers. Thanks.
Yes, consolidation is definitely one of the major goals for virtualization. In my previous post I should have said that once you have your environment virtualized and everything is replicated that needs to be replicated, shut the other physical servers down.
You can absolutely have two independent ESX hosts, they will operate fine; however, you will need to manage them separately. Most shops will have at least two hosts using shared storage (aka SAN) so that you can leverage the built in high availability/DRS options in VMWare. With the HA set up you can tolerate a complete host failure, such as the mother board situation you are talking about, and VMWare will (depending on your settings) transfer (VMotion) the virtual machines over to the other host with minimal down time (minutes, not hours). You can also leverage the DRS capabilities so that, say you have three VM's on one host and 3 VM's on the other host. If one of your VM's is going crazy (like Exchange can do) and consuming a lot of resources on the host, VMWare can automatically move the other VM's on the host to the other one with zero downtime. The key to the whole HA/DRS configuration is utilizing a SAN.
With all of the VM's you want to run on a single host with the RAID 5, I am thinking that your disk I/O is going to be nuts especially with Exchange running so performance may (read: will) be an issue.
For backups, you can use things like VMWare Consolidated Backup or simply purchase BackupExec, CommVault, etc. These products can backup the VM's and the .vmdk files.
After all is said and done, this will be an expensive proposition up front. That being said, it is sooooo worth it in the long run. And yes, VMWare is what I would recommend. Sorry for the long post.
I hate all Uppercase... I don't want my groups to seem angry at me all the time! =)
- ColdFlame (vbscript forum)
You can absolutely have two independent ESX hosts, they will operate fine; however, you will need to manage them separately. Most shops will have at least two hosts using shared storage (aka SAN) so that you can leverage the built in high availability/DRS options in VMWare. With the HA set up you can tolerate a complete host failure, such as the mother board situation you are talking about, and VMWare will (depending on your settings) transfer (VMotion) the virtual machines over to the other host with minimal down time (minutes, not hours). You can also leverage the DRS capabilities so that, say you have three VM's on one host and 3 VM's on the other host. If one of your VM's is going crazy (like Exchange can do) and consuming a lot of resources on the host, VMWare can automatically move the other VM's on the host to the other one with zero downtime. The key to the whole HA/DRS configuration is utilizing a SAN.
With all of the VM's you want to run on a single host with the RAID 5, I am thinking that your disk I/O is going to be nuts especially with Exchange running so performance may (read: will) be an issue.
For backups, you can use things like VMWare Consolidated Backup or simply purchase BackupExec, CommVault, etc. These products can backup the VM's and the .vmdk files.
After all is said and done, this will be an expensive proposition up front. That being said, it is sooooo worth it in the long run. And yes, VMWare is what I would recommend. Sorry for the long post.
I hate all Uppercase... I don't want my groups to seem angry at me all the time! =)
- ColdFlame (vbscript forum)
First id like to know whats on the server that you want to make the esx server as you stated its in use at the moment and as its a big server it must be running something good? Also, if your client is on the cheap 2 servers is going to be expensive, about $15k in licensing alone.
RoadKi11
"This apparent fear reaction is typical, rather than try to solve technical problems technically, policy solutions are often chosen." - Fred Cohen
RoadKi11
"This apparent fear reaction is typical, rather than try to solve technical problems technically, policy solutions are often chosen." - Fred Cohen
- Thread starter
- #6
unclerico, thanks for the feedback. This discussion is very helpful. Could I go withe the ESX Starter edition with two servers and a SAN and just manually move VM images in the event of a failure instead of using VMotion and the HA? Aren't those extra features? If I did that to get them started could that be something that is added later?
RoadKil1, the big server is actually not running anything spectacular. AD/DHCP/DNS & File & Print services. It is a dual quad core xeon (the vm supported processors) 1.6 GHZ with 8 GB RAM and a 500GB SAS RAID 5 running w2k3R2 SP2 x64. I did not set this up originally so I don't know why it is such a big server to essentially run AD and file services. But I would think I could double the RAM and that box would be adequate to run 5-6 VMs?
RoadKil1, the big server is actually not running anything spectacular. AD/DHCP/DNS & File & Print services. It is a dual quad core xeon (the vm supported processors) 1.6 GHZ with 8 GB RAM and a 500GB SAS RAID 5 running w2k3R2 SP2 x64. I did not set this up originally so I don't know why it is such a big server to essentially run AD and file services. But I would think I could double the RAM and that box would be adequate to run 5-6 VMs?
ESX 3.5 standard includes HA. VMotion and DRS are included in the enterprise version. In HA tests that we have run it takes upto 10 minutes to get all virtual machines running after a host failure (30 VMs), much quicker than getting a new motherboard and installing it.
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